Freedom removed from Clinton's speech to Saudi women's college

On February 16th, 2010, Hilary Clinton delivered a speech to the students of Dar Al Hekma, a women’s college in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia. New information has been released in regards to the preparation of this speech, via emails recently leaked by a conservative watchdog group called Judicial Watch. Huma Abedin was Clinton's vice chair during her campaign in 2016, and Huma's mother offered one of Clinton's speech writers some advice back in 2010. Some of her guidelines included the following:

"Do not use the political terms such as ‘democracy/ elections/ freedom."

"Do not use the term ‘empowerment of women.'"

"Do not even mention driving for women."

“Don’t sound sympathetic to ‘women’s plight.'"

While these suggestions sound awful, the above quotes are simply a manipulation of what Saleha Abedin said. Here are some other things that she said in regards to Clinton's upcoming speech:

"Do not use the term ‘empowerment of women’ instead say ‘enabling women’ and use other terms such as ‘partnership/participation."

“Do not even mention driving for women! The last visitor received a torrent of rejoinders from the students who said they have more important challenges to contend with."

”She added: “Don’t sound sympathetic to ‘women’s plight’ or be ‘patronizing’ as other visitors have done and made the students extremely annoyed."

The only remaining quote that stands on its own is that which relates to elections and freedom. I cannot speak to why she advised avoiding these topics, but I imagine it may have been to avoid frustrating members of the Saudi government who were most likely in attendance.

The full article can be found here and more information on Saleha Abedin can be found here.

#HilaryClinton #SalehaAbedin #HumaAbedin #Freedom #Women #Students